Best of LinkedIn: Defense Tech CW 44/ 45

00:00:00: provided by Thomas Allgaier and Frennus.

00:00:02: Based on the most relevant posts on LinkedIn about defense tech in CW-IV and IV-V, Frennus is a B-to-B market research company that equips product and strategy teams with market and competitive intelligence across the defense industry.

00:00:14: Welcome back to the Deep Dive.

00:00:16: Okay, so if you're working in or around the defense sector the last couple of weeks we're talking counter weeks.

00:00:20: forty four and forty five were Well-packed just a huge amount of activity.

00:00:25: our job today really is to cut through some of that noise.

00:00:27: We want to pull out the key trends the strategic signals.

00:00:30: We saw lighting up on LinkedIn.

00:00:32: We're zeroing in on that nexus of industrial policy uncrewed systems and this big push towards autonomy.

00:00:38: Yeah,

00:00:38: absolutely We've sifted through a ton of posts and what really stands out or maybe three core tensions that are shaping the industry right now and these are things we think you really need to get your head around.

00:00:48: First, there's this huge coordinated drive for industrial scale, particularly across Europe and the Allies.

00:00:54: They need volume and they need more capability independence.

00:00:57: Second, you've got this just.

00:00:59: unbelievable speed of R&D happening, really rapid iteration.

00:01:03: And a lot of that is being driven by what's happening on the ground in Ukraine.

00:01:07: And third, there's a fundamental shift in how platforms are being designed.

00:01:10: We're seeing this move towards autonomy first, thinking and architectures.

00:01:14: Right, okay.

00:01:16: Let's unpack that.

00:01:18: Started with a big picture, industrial policy investment and that need for scale you mentioned.

00:01:23: It feels like the conversation has shifted, doesn't it?

00:01:26: It's less if we need to rearm and more how fast, how efficiently, and how do we bridge that gap between civilian tech and military needs.

00:01:34: Exactly.

00:01:35: And what's really clear from the discussions among policymakers and investors is that dual use tech.

00:01:42: It's not just a nice to have anymore.

00:01:43: It's central.

00:01:44: It's a core lever.

00:01:46: The big challenge, though, is how you de-risk that early procurement phase for the startups.

00:01:51: You know, getting them through that valley of death from a working prototype to actually scaling up production.

00:01:56: And we are seeing some practical ways forward emerge.

00:01:58: I saw Kadri Tamai observed that the doors actually wider open now for new defense companies than maybe ever before.

00:02:06: Programs like Nato's Diana, other allied innovation hubs, they're really important because they give these startups a path, validation, maybe some early money.

00:02:15: But that scale challenge, it really needs countries working together, particularly in Europe.

00:02:19: Alessandro Scalinci called some recent collaborations a strategic step toward a truly European defense industry.

00:02:25: And he's talking about, you know, significant agreements, things like the Leonardo and Rhymedal A-II CS contract or that high level MOU that Airbus, Leonardo and Thales signed.

00:02:35: The goal there potentially is creating a single European space champion.

00:02:39: Michael Skollhorn highlighted that one.

00:02:41: And these aren't just like standard corporate deals.

00:02:43: They're about strategic integration, building volume, reducing dependency.

00:02:48: And you see that thinking flow right down into procurement, how things are actually bought.

00:02:52: Constantine C.I.O.

00:02:54: Sirlin pointed to that European Defense Agency contract with S.A.

00:02:58: for the Carl Gustaf ammo.

00:03:00: It's a great example, joint buying, efficient buying.

00:03:04: It's really the only way for many countries to make their budget stretch and to tell industry, look, we need this standardized and in the large quantities.

00:03:11: But

00:03:11: this push for a stronger industrial base, it's not just a core EU or NATO thing.

00:03:15: We saw some really defining moments.

00:03:17: happening with allies building up their own sovereign capabilities, take Australia.

00:03:21: David Goodrich OAM flagged a major step with Endural Australia opening their new production site and rolling out the first ghost shark vehicle.

00:03:29: That speed, getting from concepts to an actual vehicle so quickly.

00:03:34: That says a lot about how agile... maybe decentralized manufacturing can work.

00:03:38: Yeah, and you see a similar kind of high stakes industrial calculation playing out in Canada, right, with their fighter jet decisions.

00:03:45: Definitely.

00:03:45: Pascal M laid out just how critical that choice is between the F- Thirty-Five and the Gripen.

00:03:50: It's not purely about which plane is best.

00:03:53: It's directly linked to reducing reliance on US supply chains.

00:03:56: And, you know, if they go with local Gripen production, that could mean up to six thousand skilled jobs in Canada.

00:04:03: And meanwhile, you've got Jean-Braise Dumont from Airbus talking about their role as a major industrial player already in Canada.

00:04:09: Promoting this whole ecosystem around platforms like the Kingfisher supporting, what, two thousand plus jobs.

00:04:14: Exactly.

00:04:15: The takeaway is that these big defense decisions, they're now completely tangled up with national economic strategy, industrial resilience, jobs, the whole package.

00:04:23: Okay, so that need for scale is huge.

00:04:26: But then there's the flip side, the need for speed.

00:04:29: And that brings us to our second cluster, uncrewed systems, counter UAS, and this whole new R&D picture.

00:04:37: It's maybe a tough thing to say, but Ukraine really has become the de facto R&D environment for a lot of this tech.

00:04:44: It has.

00:04:44: Nicholas Collin put it really well, I thought, called Ukraine Europe's sort of unexpected R&D lab, the sheer speed of iteration.

00:04:51: you see there.

00:04:52: That's the new benchmark globally.

00:04:55: But the really strategic insight, I think, is in the economics.

00:04:58: Look at the Estang Interceptor developed in Ukraine.

00:05:00: A view.

00:05:01: Barzohar shared details on this.

00:05:02: It costs about twenty-five hundred dollars a unit, flies over three hundred and fifteen kilometers per hour, and it's proving really effective against things like the Shahid drones.

00:05:10: And that price point, twenty-five hundred dollars, you just can't ignore that.

00:05:13: It highlights the problem.

00:05:14: You can't keep using multi-million dollar missiles against cheap mass-produced drones indefinitely.

00:05:18: That cost imbalance, it just eats away at the advantage of traditional air defenses.

00:05:22: For sure.

00:05:23: And that demand for counter-UAS, for CUAS, it's critical everywhere.

00:05:27: Look at U.S.

00:05:28: Northcom's counter small UAS flyaway kit.

00:05:31: Kyle S. Erickson highlighted this.

00:05:33: They had an eleven person team, mostly people not from their defense backgrounds, use commercial systems.

00:05:38: Things like Andrews, Heimdall and Anvil.

00:05:40: Okay.

00:05:41: And they engaged over a hundred targets in just thirty days.

00:05:45: That shows a massive shift, right?

00:05:47: You got COTAS commercial off-the-shelf systems being used effectively by teams trained up quickly, not just highly specialized units.

00:05:54: Right.

00:05:54: Necessity is driving that innovation.

00:05:56: Dave Sharpen shared Sven Krux's work on the Jaeger or Hunter interceptor.

00:06:03: And that's interesting because it's designed from scratch, a clean sheet designed specifically to tackle that cost problem, to make the cost per kill economically sustainable against swarm attacks.

00:06:12: Which leads us perfectly into the third theme.

00:06:14: autonomy, AI, and this idea of software-defined defense.

00:06:17: Because if you want that speed and adaptability, you really have to start with software.

00:06:21: The value proposition now seems to be all about embedding AI into open, flexible architectures right from the beginning.

00:06:27: Yeah, we're definitely seeing a fundamental change in design philosophy.

00:06:30: Like Enduro flying their YFQ-IVA Fury, that's a Group V UAV, sort of a collaborative combat aircraft.

00:06:38: And Vernon Weisenberg really emphasized, this wasn't designed like a traditional drone needing a pilot with a joystick.

00:06:44: It was built for semi-autonomous operation.

00:06:47: It's autonomy first.

00:06:49: That changes how you even think about the human role.

00:06:51: And getting to that autonomy first capability, it leans heavily on digital engineering.

00:06:59: He talked about how modern aerospace development integrates.

00:07:03: models, software, hardware right from the start.

00:07:05: They go from simulating hardware with software model in the loop.

00:07:08: Right.

00:07:09: To using the actual system processors to test the software processor in the loop.

00:07:13: The whole point is catching integration problems early, avoiding those huge costly delays that plague traditional programs.

00:07:20: But then the AI itself, the different bits, they need to talk to each other, right?

00:07:23: That interoperability piece is key.

00:07:25: Jim Techlett announced Lockheed Martin's Asterisk AI is integrating NVIDIA AI Enterprise software.

00:07:32: That's partly about speeding up development, sure, but it's also about using common tools, common languages.

00:07:37: Exactly.

00:07:38: And Dr.

00:07:39: Mark T. Maybury introduced Lockheed Martin's STAR OSC.

00:07:43: That's a unified framework specifically designed to make different AI systems play nice together.

00:07:48: Because historically, you know, you'd have these brilliant AI tools that couldn't easily share data or coordinate in the field.

00:07:55: It was an integration nightmare.

00:07:57: This kind of framework aims to fix that core communication problem for defense applications.

00:08:02: And we're seeing this new approach lead to actual capabilities now.

00:08:07: In air power, for instance, SHIELD AI picking GE Aerospace's F-One Ten engine for their XB-Eight autonomous fighter jet.

00:08:14: Yeah,

00:08:14: Samir Kaya pointed out the strategic significance there.

00:08:17: You're talking about potentially having high performance air combat capability, operating at a tiny fraction of the cost of current man fighters.

00:08:24: That's game changing.

00:08:26: And it's not just fighters.

00:08:27: Autonomy is changing support roles too, like logistics.

00:08:30: Tim Cahill showed autonomous helicopters using matrix attack on a blackhawk doing complex jobs like moving Himmars launch tubes.

00:08:38: Wow.

00:08:39: And Brett and Jacob made a really crucial point.

00:08:42: This future of autonomy has to be multi-domain.

00:08:45: It can't just be air systems.

00:08:47: Land systems are absolutely central to making this transformation real.

00:08:51: Okay, so alongside these big themes, we also need to touch on some specialized capabilities.

00:08:56: Critical enablers, really, for future conflicts.

00:08:59: Things like space and maritime security.

00:09:01: Yeah, absolutely critical.

00:09:02: Joseph Aschbacher gave a pretty stark warning about the security threats in space now.

00:09:06: Unprecedented, he called them.

00:09:08: He's pushing for coordinated European efforts to build autonomous resilience up there.

00:09:12: The kind of thing he's worried about is like jamming of GPS signals, PNT denial.

00:09:18: That can basically blind forces reliant on satellite data.

00:09:21: Autonomous systems are seen as maybe the only real way to stay operational if that happens.

00:09:25: And down on the water, in the maritime domain, the focus seems to be very much on integrated kill chains, multi-domain operations.

00:09:33: Pierre-Eric Pommelais announced Belgium getting its new mine countermeasure mothership.

00:09:38: That's a big boost for NATO's ability to handle underwater threats.

00:09:42: And again, you see that dual use angle speeding things up.

00:09:45: Stephanie C. Hill highlighted Lockheed Martin putting fifty million dollars into Sail Drone.

00:09:51: Right.

00:09:51: The autonomous surface vehicles.

00:09:53: Exactly.

00:09:53: They're using commercial tech that collects ocean data and adapting it for naval autonomous systems.

00:09:58: That fusion just accelerates everything.

00:10:01: Now, this next one is fascinating.

00:10:03: A bit of a comeback story, maybe.

00:10:04: Future effects.

00:10:05: Keith King detailed the U.S.

00:10:07: Railgun program being back, this time with General Atomic.

00:10:10: Yeah, the Railgun promises Mach-Six interception speeds for missiles, which is impressive.

00:10:15: But the strategic implication is maybe even bigger.

00:10:18: Think about it.

00:10:19: Virtually unlimited magazine depth, that's the phrase used, and much lower cost per shot compared to traditional missile interceptors.

00:10:27: So for a ship in a fight.

00:10:29: Exactly.

00:10:30: A Navy ship today is limited by how many expensive missiles it can carry.

00:10:33: An electromagnetic rail gun potentially changes the whole calculus of a sustained naval battle.

00:10:38: You get continuous, affordable defense that could fundamentally alter naval doctrine.

00:10:44: Okay, so we've covered a lot of ground scale, speed, autonomy, new weapons, but before we wrap up, we need that reality check.

00:10:52: You hear a lot of buzz?

00:10:54: Is it all real?

00:10:55: Is there a risk of a defense tech bubble here?

00:10:57: That skepticism is really important, I think.

00:10:59: Jonathan Panter voiced that concern directly worried about a potential defense tech bubble.

00:11:03: He pointed out, you know, non-experts maybe driving strategy talks, everyone citing the same handful of books.

00:11:08: It points to that classic tension, right, between the fast-moving venture capital world and the often slow, very deliberate pace of actual military procurement and fielding.

00:11:19: Yeah, that gap between the hype and the reality on the ground.

00:11:22: That's critical.

00:11:23: Chattacoor really hit this hard.

00:11:24: He talked about the huge responsibility in this sector.

00:11:26: He warned about seeing impressive demo videos, sometimes even fraudulent ones, versus what actually works reliably in the field.

00:11:33: And his point was powerful.

00:11:35: For defense products, success isn't just about revenue.

00:11:38: It's literally the difference between life and death, which demands what he called an absolute operator-first

00:11:45: focus.

00:11:46: So if you boil all this down, the push for scale, the race for speed, the flood of new tech and investment, what's the core takeaway?

00:11:53: Anton's Kreslans, I thought, summed it up nicely.

00:11:56: He said, it's not just about building more systems.

00:11:58: It's about having a system, an overall approach that lets you adapt quickly to solve the right problem at the right time.

00:12:04: Agility trumps sheer mass.

00:12:06: That adaptability, that speed of adoption, that feels like the central challenge now, doesn't it?

00:12:10: We see this dual push for allied industrial scale happening.

00:12:13: We see the incredible speed of innovation coming out of Ukraine and this deep commitment to designing for autonomy.

00:12:20: The pieces are there, the trends are clear.

00:12:23: But the strategic puzzle for everyone in the industry, for you listening, is still.

00:12:28: How do you actually translate all this rapid, often commercial-led innovation into reliable, scalable military capability without losing that vital momentum?

00:12:39: Exactly.

00:12:40: And that leads to the final thought we wanted to leave you with.

00:12:43: Given how successful some commercial dual-use tech has been in Ukraine, and given the pressure we see for faster testing, people like Adam Painter at Diana, pushing for it, Karari Kink driving for real-world medical innovation trials, how quickly can the established, often very long-term defense acquisition systems actually align themselves with the immediate, iterative, really urgent needs of the warfighter who's out there right now?

00:13:05: That tension.

00:13:06: That feels like the question defining the future of defense tech.

00:13:09: If you enjoy this deep dive, new episodes drop every two weeks.

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00:13:20: Thanks for diving up with us.

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